Unitas first full-year progress by managing director Darren Goldney

Suppliers to Unitas Wholesale have reported an aggregated 4% sales increase (excluding tobacco) for 2019, reported the group’s managing director Darren Goldney as Unitas comes to the end of its first complete financial year.

Darren Goldney: ‘Our ‘new world’ is about getting bigger, primarily through being better.’

“Our progress is characterised by the growth in independent member wholesaler numbers to 172, and the expansion of our supplier partner network benefiting from a centralised conduit to the independent channel.  Unitas Wholesale has agreed over 330 supplier agreements designed to facilitate growth,” he said.

“Ultimately while scale and sales moving in a positive direction is hugely encouraging, we are equally excited about the platforms we are building for getting better in the future. Our ‘new world’ is about getting bigger, primarily through being better.”

Goldney highlighted a number of first-year successes, including the ‘Picture Portal’ promotional compliance platform developed for both B2B and B2C promotions, and the ‘Plan For Profit’ core range programme, which has generated over 90% member compliance and involved 50,000 pieces of point-of-sale material being sited on a quarterly basis. In total, more than 9,000 independent retailers are engaging with the ‘Plan for Profit’ digital platform across web and app.

Goldney added that the Unitas retail promotional programme now supports around 4,000 stores across symbol and retail club.

Earlier this year the group launched the Unitas Data Service, offering insight on over £1 billion of sales data, and coming up is a new pilot programme for NPD called Brand Box, which will give supplier partners access to 1,000 stores at launch, perfectly executed in store on a ‘no play no pay basis’.

As previously reported, Unitas has cancelled its trade show, due to take place on 17-18 March, due to the
Coronavirus. Instead it will be running a ‘virtual trade show’ when members will be able to take advantage of the deals that they would have been exposed to at the event.

“We have arranged for members to receive the deals online and for telephone discussions to take place across the member/supplier network with an expected 1,000-plus  conversations taking place,” said Goldney, “so while it may not be the traditional trade show that our delegates were expecting, it is the next best thing and a living example of ‘efficiency’ that brings our stakeholders together.”

Tel: Unitas Wholesale (01302) 249909